Read a full match report for the Premier League game between Newcastle United
and Manchester United at St James' Park on Saturday, April 5, 2014

The biggest compliment you can pay Manchester United after this comprehensive victory is that they made it look routine. The biggest insult you can throw at Newcastle United is they did nothing to prevent that being the case.

David Moyes has not had many better days than this as Manchester United’s manager. Not only did his side dismantle Newcastle and make it look easy, they did so while he rested eight players ahead of the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich.

At one point in the second-half, Moyes was in such a comfortable, angst free mood that he could respond to calls from the away fans with a wave. He was so content in his post-match press conference that he smiled and cracked jokes. One of them, about Marouane Fellani suffering a dizzy spell in the second half, was even funny.

Since last weekend when a plane was hired to fly a protest banner over Old Trafford, Manchester United have scored eight goals in the Premier League, won two games and held the World and European champions to a draw in the Champions League. As publicity stunts go, it seems to have had nothing but a positive impact on the team and results.

The architect of this win was Juan Mata. It has taken the Spaniard more time to start winning games than Manchester United imagined following his £37m move from Chelsea in January, but he was the class act at St James’ Park.

He scored twice, either side of half-time, to effectively end Newcastle’s interest in the contest. The first was a precise free-kick into the top corner from the edge of the area, the second a deft piece of skill and simple finish.

“I thought we played very, very well and scored some quality goals,” said Moyes. “We didn’t start that well but once we got into it, the first goal set us up well.

“Juan Mata has played really well since he got here and he has made us better. He didn’t get the goals in the early games, but recently he has started to get goals and assists.

“I think, in the last few seasons in the Premier League, he has been one of the leading assist makers and he has also got a good tally of goals. We needed that and he is coming up with the goods now.

“I’ve had a lot of good performances this season, but a lot of them have been away from home. We haven’t got that as much in our home games. There is a good spirit in the group and we are beginning to show little bits of signs of making good improvements. We just want to finish as high up the table as we can and we’ll see where we end up. “An injury to Ashley Young with a suspected dislocated thumb was the only setback for Moyes, who did not sound too worried about Wayne Rooney missing this game with a toe injury.

“I’ve not received an update from the medical staff, but we’ll give him every opportunity to recover before the game in Munich,” was all he would say about his absence.

As for Newcastle, manager Alan Pardew needs to get to grips with their slump. He has admitted he is having trouble motivating a side with nothing to play for other than pride, but this was another uninspiring performance, when he had promised a response to the abject 4-0 defeat at Southampton a week earlier. They have now lost seven of their last ten games, scoring just six goals, while conceding 22.

The flimsiness of Newcastle United’s squad was emphasised by the presence of Dan Gosling in midfield, although it was even more damning of Hatem Ben Arfa’s fall from grace.

The Frenchman was once considered Newcastle’s star player; their match winner. Now he cannot even get in the team ahead of a player who had started just one league game in four years on Tyneside, which came against Norwich Cityy back in 2011.

Gosling, though, had the first chance, a header from 12 yards which flew just wide. Newcastle also forced the first good save, Papiss Demba Cisse’s header tipped over by Anders Lindegaard, but it was all Manchester United after that.

Mata’s free-kick was executed with the precision of an artist signing their name on an oil painting, while his second owed much to a poor header from Newcastle captain Fabricio Coloccini, which allowed Shinji Kagawa to send Javier Hernandez on the attack.

Hernandez hit the post in the first half, but added a third goal from close range before Adnan Januzaj scored Manchester’s fourth from a Mata back heal. St James’ Park was half empty by then. Those that remained booed and jeered their team.

“It’s tough for our fans, they want to see exciting attacking football and we’re not producing that at the moment,” said Pardew. “It was tight and tense, but they scored the first goal and that settled them. With our form, it was always going to be hard after that.”